Bingham: Tiger turns 'em all to jelly

What is it that makes players who are paired with Tiger Woods turn into guava jelly? Their smiles may be brave, their words optimistic, but deep inside they can hear the bugler playing taps.

Walter Bingham

What is it that makes players who are paired with Tiger Woods turn into guava jelly? Their smiles may be brave, their words optimistic, but deep inside they can hear the bugler playing taps.

Last week at the Accenture World Match Play Championship in the Arizona desert, a series of supposedly stout-hearted men marched to the first tee, found Woods waiting for them, and, sooner or later, ran up the white flag. Let's take Stewart Cink, for example.

Cink had qualified for what was intended to be the 36-hole final against Woods by beating, among others, the current British and U.S. Open champions. In winning his semifinal match against Justin Leonard, he made six birdies and an eagle on the front nine, shooting 29. Try that on, Tiger.

But even before Cink teed it up in the finals Sunday morning, he established his negative mindset. "I'm a professional golfer," he said, "but I'm a golf fan as well. (Tiger's) the best ever."

Cink added that he was in awe of what Woods can do. What would Vince Lombardi make of that?

An NBC preview billed the championship match as a Dodge City, gunslinger showdown, but alas, Cink's gun was only firing blanks. Same golf course, same person, different chemistry.

On one hole, where he had previously had all birdies and an eagle, Cink made a bogey against Tiger. On another, with Woods in the process of making his only bogey of the match, Cink was 85 yards from the pin, needing only a simple pitch and two putts to win the hole. Couldn't do it.

Four down after 18 holes, Cink went down another four after 11 more holes to lose by a record-setting 8 and 7.

In fairness, Cink did have a series of putts that lipped out, putts that in earlier rounds had been dropping. Johnny Miller offered this quirky theory. "Who knows," he said. "Maybe someday science will reveal that Tiger Woods had the ability to make an opponent's ball lip out."

Much was made of Tiger's first-round comeback against J.B. Holmes, who found himself three-up with only five holes remaining. Woods rallied to win, sinking four straight putts from Tucson to the Mexican border. Holmes had a birdie putt on the final hole to tie, but the 25-year-old J.B., having just had his first introduction to a Woods haymaker, never came close.

But the fact is, Woods twice came even closer to losing. When last year's match play champion, Henrik Stenson, pulled even with Woods by making a birdie on the 16th hole in the semifinals, it seemed as if he had Tiger on the ropes. Whereupon Stenson immediately hit his drive on the 17th out where the cactus and rattlesnakes thrive, losing the hole and match. There is no record of whether or not Tiger said thank you.

It was Aaron Baddeley, the young Australian, who had the best chance to beat Woods, in Friday's third round. Baddeley, you may remember, had experienced his first Tiger-paralysis last year at the U.S. Open when, leading the tournament starting the final round and paired with Woods, he triple-bogeyed the very first hole and shot 80.

This time Baddeley, one of the game's best putters, arrived at the final hole all square, with a tricky 12-footer to win the match. Tiger was helpless and could only stand there, ready to doff his cap and offer his congratulations. Baddeley's putt never came close.

But then on the first extra hole, Baddeley had a second chance, this time an easy 10-footer. It was the kind of putt he might make eight of 10 times against a Duffy Waldorf or even a Sergio Garcia.

But against Woods? The guava jelly force kicked it, Baddeley missed and Tiger, like his namesake with the cage door unlocked, pounced and won the match with a birdie on the next hole.

In Sunday's consolation match for third place, Stenson birdied the first four holes against Leonard.

"Tiger's lucky he's not playing Stenson today," said Miller.

For once, Johnny was missing the whole point. Anybody can start a round with four straight birdies, but not against Tiger Woods. They wouldn't dare.

Walter Bingham, a former editor and writer for Sports Illustrated, lives in Truro. He can be contacted by e-mail at sports@capecodonline.com.